


every bit of energy

by chasingblue57



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU, Drabbles, F/M, One-Shots, occasional team visits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:48:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingblue57/pseuds/chasingblue57
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every bit of energy inside of us, every particle, will go on to be something else. Lives that Jemma Simmons & Leo Fitz could have lived, in other universes and other times. (Series of one-shot AU stories including Camp Half-Blood, CSI, mutants and more).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night Before [Life Goes On]

"Sittin’ up on the roof, sneaking a smoke by the chimney, checkin’ out the moon in the city lights  
Takes off his flannel shirt and he drapes it around her shoulders, slides up behind her and holds on tight  
And she says ‘I don’t want this night to end, why does it have to end?'" Carrie Underwood, the Night Before [Life Goes On]

It’s unusually chilly for late August, the light wind only highlighting the cool air. The stars are faint in a velvety sky, their brilliance dulled by the glow of streetlights, buildings and the unending traffic of Glasglow. The moon though, it refuses to pale in the wake of manmade imitations: silvery light soft upon her features, not unlike his gaze as he watches her settle on the shingles, knees pressed to her chest, bound by her arms.

God, she’s the most beautiful thing he’s seen in his whole life. Not that that’s necessarily saying much. He’s grown up in this grubby little patch of the city, where every man’s knuckles are scratched over and their nail beds filled with evidence of a long, hard day’s work. Really, he’s more fortunate than most of them: oldest of three, son of a business-owning mechanic. Sure, he’ll work hard as any of them the rest of his days, but at least he’ll have the business to his name. It’s more than most folks here will ever have.

But it’s so much less than he wants. He wants her, with her caramel curls and bright hazel eyes, blazing curiosity. Jemma Simmons, with her polite Sheffield accent and her soft, dainty fingers, and her big dreams of becoming a doctor. Jemma Simmons, with a smile that warms even the fiercest Scottish winter night, a kindness that leaves even his sweet mother astounded. Daring enough to earn even his father’s respect and patient enough to see some value in a quiet, brooding boy in the back of the classroom the very first day her family had moved here from England. He wants her, and nothing else, for the rest of his days but he’ll never deserve her.

He sighs, heavily, tears his gaze from her long enough to pull a pack of smokes from his pocket and light one, to her immediate displease.

“Leo, you promised,” she wheedles, looking up to him with a smile that in no way diminishes her tone of disapproval.

He manages one puff before he drops it, crushes the offending object beneath his worn old trainers. “Sorry Jem, it’s just got me all in knots, thinkin’ about tomorrow.”

She shivers then, whether at the breeze dancing around them or the thought of the morning, he doesn’t know. But he tugs off his worn old button down and covers her with it before nestling in behind her, arms snug about her waist. Her reply comes a moment later, as his chin takes its place on her shoulder.

“The only thing that needs to change is that we’ll see each other less Leo,” she reaffirms, same as she’s done almost daily for months, ever since the letter came from Cambridge. “I’m not about to go off to Uni and just forget you, I love you.”

“I love you too lass,” Leo begins, gnawing at the thoughts that have eaten at his insides far too long now. “But you’re off on a grand adventure, to make somethin’ of yourself and I’m just going to be here, working with dad at the shop. Same as I’ve been doing every day after school for years.”

He gets to the heart of it as he’s never managed before. But she already knows: of course she does. They’ve been best friends (and then more) since the day she showed up in his maths class more than three years ago. She knows him, even the secrets he buries away.

“Leopold Alastair Fitz, don’t you even begin to imply that you are not good enough for me,” she half turns in his embrace, her gaze fierce. “You are thoughtful and gentle and brilliant: you are everything I want.” She only wishes he could see it. If his family could afford it, she knows he could go to university with her, do amazing things. She tells him all the time.

There’s a smile on his face, soft as spun silk, even as he heaves another sigh. How someone so sweet and kind can turn so stern so quickly is a paradox to him. He’s joked before (and would do it again, but it’s not the time) that of the pair of them, it’s she who is most lion like. “I know, I know, I’m just gonna miss you is all. And I don’t want you to give up anything in life just for me,” because that’s what love is, wanting everything for that person, even at your own expense. And God, but does he love her.

“I’m not,” she reassures him quietly, snuggling more tightly into his embrace before giving a sigh of her own. “I just wish we could stay up here forever, you and me with nothing changing.”

He’d like that too, but even he knows that can’t happen. There’s more out there for her than an old rooftop in the harder parts of Glasglow. And he hopes, more than anything in the world, that whatever that more is will include him, will do anything he needs to to ensure it does, but he also knows that if it can’t, he’ll let her go on without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one isn't a too far out AU, regular world as, generally, regular people. Inspired by Carrie Underwood's The Night Before [Life Goes On].
> 
> Don't own AoS or the song, just the story itself.
> 
> If you've got any ideas for AU's (or topics for my other drabble collection 'a little bit daft') let me know. Thanks for the support & for reading!


	2. CSI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every bit of energy inside of us, every particle, will go on to be something else. Lives that Jemma Simmons & Leo Fitz could have lived, in other universes and other times. (Series of one-shot AU stories including Camp Half-Blood, CSI, mutants and more).

Jemma Simmons loves her job but she hates these kinds of cases: the ones with little kids and formerly happy families, the ones that cause the normally mild mannered CSI Coulson to snap impatiently for evidence and leave even stoic CSI May to look stretched thin. These are the cases that simultaneously make her wish she was in the field, doing more to help, yet glad that she remains in the lab, processing trace and DNA and not dealing with grieving families. Neither wish will get her anywhere at the moment though, so she concentrates on what she does best.

She’s in the middle of running an important trace sample through the mass spectrometer when, as it’s want to do, all hell breaks loose. The machine makes a noise that sounds like scraping, Jemma makes a noise that sounds like defeat, and then the little warning beep fills her lab. Huffing a sigh, she sets down the previous results she’d been examining and taps on the windowed wall to the next lab over.

Leo Fitz, resident ballistics and explosives expert, and her very best friend since college, looks up at the unexpected rapping, face full of concentration. His brow lifts in question but the confusion clears immediately when Jemma nods to the blinking light on her favorite machine. Without hesitation he abandons the weapon he’s been analyzing and makes his way over, grabbing a tool kit as he goes.

“Acting up again?” 

“Yes, same sound as before.” She really just needs the silly machine to hold on another day. The transit record on the replacement part tells her it’s en route for drop off, but they don’t have time to wait. “Can you get it working long enough for me to analyze that debris from the ransom note?”

“Of course,” he gives her his usual half-smirking grin and gets to work, gingerly removing the sample inside and passing it off so he doesn’t disturb whatever it is. (He feels a bit better knowing that its non-organic and thus comfortingly not body bits though he would never tell Jemma. She knows anyway, or she’d have taken it out before pestering him.)

Momentarily at a standstill on the case, Jemma allows herself a long moment to appreciate and admire him as he works, single-mindedly focused on the task. She enjoys the quick, easy way his fingers move through the internal workings of the machine, as naturally as they slip over bullet fragments, shrapnel or a bottle of beer after a hard case. It’s not two minutes before he’s popping panels back in place and pronouncing the machine ‘fit enough to get through ‘til tomorrow’ before giving her another smile, a ‘good luck’ and then making his way back to pour over bullet striations and potential murder weapons.

An hour later, when one of her results provides Coulson with the link he needs to find the kidnapper and save the missing child, she pops over to his workstation, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek and startling him from his ballistics report.

“I take it you just helped save the day?” He asks, looking up as he finishes signing off on his own positive id to see her beaming smile.

“All thanks to you and your magic hands,” she positively bubbles, before a slight flush settles against her cheekbones. But she’s Jemma Simmons, she exudes joy even though they work often surrounded by its opposite, and she recovers quickly. “Thanks for the fix Fitz.”

“Anytime Simmons,” he responds, grinning mischievously. “These magic hands could use a bottle of beer between them. Up for a celebratory drink?” 

Her laughter chases away the ghosts of death and sadness, heralds in the joy of victory and justice as it always does, and reminds him how he keeps doing this job (for the victims, for their families, for closure but mostly, for her). She doesn’t even answer, just heads for the locker room to deposit her lab coat and grab her bag, knowing he’ll follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the first au I wrote for this pair. I really enjoy imagining them in similar themed jobs, still working on some sort of team. Obviously I don't own AoS or CSI, but the ideas here.
> 
> Always glad to accept ideas for other au themes and very much appreciate all your support in the form of comments & kudos. If you've got any feedback to make these better, that would also be wonderful.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Camp Half-Blood

“C’mon Jemma, time to get up. We’ve got cabin inspection in fifteen minutes,” calls an urgent voice from above.

Bleary, sleep-heavy hazel eyes open to see a familiar face peering down from the bunk above: Haley Parker. With her birthday just nine weeks prior to Jemma’s own, Haley is her closest half-sibling in age in the Apollo cabin. She also happens to be one of her closest friends. “Besides, aren’t you suppose to be helping Leo with his archery this morning?”

Jemma Althea Simmons, sixteen-year-old demigod daughter of Apollo, promptly rolls her eyes at the way Haley’s tone changes upon mentioning her very best friend. Leo Fitz, likewise sixteen and a fellow year round camper, might have a mechanical brilliance that makes many question his status as a son of Athena, but he is not very bright when it comes to feelings. At least, that’s Haley’s description, as she insists time and again that the pair mean more to each other than they’re letting on.

Like she always does, Jemma heaves a long suffering sigh at the notion before rolling out of bed and joining in the frantic last minute cleaning that always comes before cabin inspection. (The Apollo campers are not particularly messy by camp standards but they have a collective bad habit of leaving arrows, herbs and instruments lying about.)

—-

Jemma spends the rest of the morning on the archery range, alternating between patiently correcting Leo’s grip and loosing perfect example shots that hit their target dead-center. For what must be the twentieth time since they’ve started, he tugs his fingers through his curls, frustrated by her perfection and his utter lack thereof.

“It’s no use Jem,” he mumbles, even as he reaches out for the bow she’s holding. “I’m just not any good at archery.”

“It’s all mathematics Leo.” She’s been trying to console and explain this to him since they began. She knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he can do this. He just needs to realize that archery is nothing more than a practical application of the simple principles he loves to tinker with in his designs. “As soon as you’ve learned to convert the formulas into physical space, you’ll be a natural.”

He remains unconvinced but, perhaps thankfully, their training session is interrupted by shouts.

The pair turn toward the commotion, only to see Haley and Maria Hill, the head Ares camper, running towards the Big House. Haley seems to notice her half-sister and calls out the news. “Grant, May and Phil are back from their quest!” Her face is split between a grin and a grimace. It’s a look campers know well: joy for the return of their fellow half-bloods tampered with the fact that someone has returned in less than ideal condition.

Their gazes catch as they turn back to one another, hesitating only a moment to grin before Jemma scoops up the quiver of arrows and Leo slings her bow across his chest. In sync, as always, the pair tears off towards the camp gates, edging through the crowd until they’ve managed to clear most of their peers and reach the inside of the circle. They stand next to Skye (one of Hermes’ most mischievous daughters) and join in surveying the returned questers.

Neither is surprised by what they see: Phil Coulson, Melinda May and Grant Ward are collapsed in a bruised, exhausted heap just over the threshold of the camp. Nearly three weeks of absence, spent searching for a key that once belonged to Leto, has clearly taken their toll. Grant’s sword arm is in a sling, the patches of skin peeking out are crossed with scratches and his legs are likewise covered. Coulson seems to wince with every breath, a twitch of his eye that Jemma picks out immediately, gesturing toward it worriedly to Leo. Even May, who is a quest legend in her own right, looks worse for the wear—a large bruise seems to be waning across her cheek and the hem of her t-shirt sleeve is scorched.

Jemma is among the Apollo campers asked to help address their wounds so, after passing off her quiver of arrows to Leo, the pair part ways. She gingerly helps Coulson towards the Big House, joining him in a poorly stifled giggle as they watch May flat out refuse Haley’s offer of assistance.

—

Later that night when dinner’s been eaten, their fellow campers healed and the stars have begun to dot the skyline, Jemma sneaks away from the merry evening campfire and walks quietly to Zeus’s fist. Like he usually does, Leo’s already beaten her there, settled on the grassy earth and leaning his back against a particularly broad and flat-faced boulder.

For a long time they sit in silence, shoulders just barely brushing, enjoying the distant sounds of camp songs and laughter. She breaks the silence only after a long while, gaze in the stars. “Do you think we’ll ever go on another quest?”

It’s been two summers since her father sent them on an expedition to find a magic herb to heal a very sick Pegasus but he remembers it like it was yesterday. The thought sends a shiver coursing down his spine. They’d nearly lost the Pegasus and Jemma that summer, Leo wasn’t sure the glory and excitement of a quest could ever make up for that. “Dunno Jem,” he mutters, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “Guess it depends on them.” She knows both by his tone and vague upward nod that he means their parents.

Jemma’s quite away that her best friend doesn’t quite share her enthusiasm for quests but she supposes if she’d had to drag his badly beaten body back to camp at the end of one, she might not be quite so fond either. Shrugging, she pulls him into a one-armed hug. “Good thing life at camp is plenty adventurous enough, eh? Now come on, we should get some sleep. We’ve got a long day of archery practice before Capture the Flag tomorrow night.”

Plenty adventurous enough indeed, Leo thinks with a grin, standing and then pulling her up with him. Feeling uncharacteristically brave, he keeps her hand in his and winds their fingers together for the walk back, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when her only response is a quiet smile of her own. Yes, plenty adventurous enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt 10 was Camp Half-Blood and so here it is. I really enjoy this world, I may come back to it in the future and explore some more.
> 
> Personally head cannons here are that Fitz would be a son of Athena, but everyone at camp thinks he'd be a better Hephaestus kid. Jemma is totally a daughter of Apollo (but sucks at all the rhyming and poetry stuff). I also think she'd be more likely to be friends with some of her siblings, as I feel she has a better family life than Fitz, hence Haley. (I'd like to believe Ward would also be an Athena kid and they'd have some brotherly tension).
> 
> As always, don't own AoS or Camp Half-Blood/PJO. If you have ideas for AU's, let me know and I'd love to explore them. Current ideas I'm sitting on and working at include: Hogwarts, His Dark Materials and a childhood friends au.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated and thanks for all the support!


	4. i'm gonna teach you [all about love]

They meet on a Monday morning in mid-August, a blazing early sun burning the dew from the grass and threatening a hot, muggy day. They’re both dressed too neatly for the weather outside, but perfectly prepared for the humming vents of cooled air and the shaking hands that goes with a day full of meetings. They’re both in their early twenties, first year science teachers at a high school in Boston, two of twelve new teachers to the district. As the group exchanges greetings and helps themselves to store-bought muffins they are re-introduced to their administrators: the bosses who will help them transition into their new lives as faculty here.

Perhaps it’s their shared British ancestry, pulling them innately together, or their shared love of science or their just-slightly too high intellects (they both hold master’s degrees a bit too early compared to other colleagues), but somehow they end up sharing a table.

They chat during breaks throughout the next three days of new teacher training, spend their lunch times in one another’s classrooms (located across the hall from one another) and delight at the absurdity of finding someone so similar in such an unlikely place.

Leo Fitz graduated from MIT with his master’s in engineering and decided somewhat randomly that the only thing more fulfilling than helping build marvelous technology would be teaching students to. He’d been in America on scholarship, having graduated from his mandatory education in Scotland at sixteen. Part of his duties as a graduate student had been to help run a science contest for teenagers and he had been surprised to find he loved it. When the opportunity to interview with the best high school science department in Massachusetts came up, he took it.

Jemma Simmons, on the other hand, had not been the least surprised to find a love in teaching when it had been required of her in grad school at Brandeis. She too had left Great Britain to come to the States at sixteen to pursue higher education. After finishing her undergrad is biology, she’d jumped straight into a double master’s program in biology and chemistry. She’d quite hoped to continue teaching as an adjunct faculty member but had started applying to secondary schools when no open positions presented themselves.

By the time school starts for the students, they’re inseparable friends: they spend the last days of summer cleaning their classrooms and prepping lessons and the last nights exploring local restaurants and pubs, watching Dr. Who and wondering about what teaching will really be like.

—

By the end of the first semester, half their students are convinced they’re dating. They traipse into one another’s classrooms mid-lesson without the slightest hesitance, usually searching for some misplaced lab supply, and add their own thoughts to whatever topic is currently being taught. Jemma’s AP biology students are especially amused when Mr. Fitz walks in during a dissection day, intent on collecting his mid-day snack from the science department fridge in Miss Simmons’ office, only to hear him shouting in horror moments later.

“What on earth is that sitting next to my sandwich Simmons?” As they always do in front of students, he drops the title that falls before her last name but uses it rather than her first.

“Honestly Fitz, it’s just a part of our dissection—it’s science, you’re a science teacher!”

“It’s a cat’s liver, isn’t it Simmons?” He spots a student who is also in his AP Physics class and calls her over. “Mary, come here would you? You’ll know. That’s a liver, isn’t it?”

Their students, especially the advanced ones whom they share in both their classes, are well used to the friendly bickering that Mr. Fitz and Miss Simmons regularly get involved in. Truthfully, they find it fascinating and it’s every honors student’s favorite pastime to attempt to pull them into some sort of scientific disagreement mid-class. They get a bit heated from time to time but anyone, from student to staff, can tell that they remain friends and colleagues despite the disagreements and the rest of the department enjoys it as much as the students do. The principal himself had walked in once to both classes crammed into one room, watching in fascination as they went back in forth on string theory. He couldn’t argue that it was an interesting way to engage the students in each side of the debate. 

Uncertain if this will be one of those situations, but equally fond of both teachers, Mary pulls away from her own group’s splayed feline specimen to lean into the office refrigerator and nod a moment later. “Yes Mr. Fitz, definitely looks like a liver to me.”

He huffs, smiles and nods encouragingly to the bright young junior. “Thank you Mary,” before turning to Jemma. “A liver Simmons, not three inches from my sandwich!”

“Which is perfectly well wrapped up and in line with any standard safety protocol, which any of my students could tell you.” She nods to the class even as Leo trudges out of the room in a huff, snack abandoned, apparently to go back to grading physics labs.

“Is this why you and Mr. Fitz don’t live together Miss Simmons?” One of the boys asks, watching with the same unconcealed amusement that the majority of her class wears. “Because he’s afraid you’ll leave organs next to his dinner?” 

Jemma Simmons ignores the question and instead approaches the student’s lab table. “Your turn Connor, point out the subclavian artery please.” The rest of class proceeds as if nothing had happened, though Jemma quietly places an order of Chinese to be delivered for lunch while her students clean their lab tables.

—

They’re at a staff meeting when the nickname pops up for the first time, though they both suspect the rest of the science department has been using it awhile—it falls off their department head’s lips far too easily. “Fitz-Simmons have had a lot of success with their impromptu co-teaching sessions. I’d like to propose a co-taught section of bioengineering next year.”

A flurry of conversation and ideas begins and by the end of the meeting, everyone seems enamored of the idea and they’re being asked to put together a course proposal for the next board of education meeting. Leo gives Jemma a lopsided smile and shrug, which she returns with a grin and scrunch of her nose—wholehearted bemusement on a variety of levels.

But in that moment it’s like the mold is broken: suddenly everyone seems to be referring to them in the collective, a unit rather than two single entities.

To be fair, they do a lot of cross curricular projects between their classes, spend their after school hours making tea and grading papers together and are often enough spotted out on the town for a drink or dinner. And it gets even worse with the new class. They spend the last two weeks in February together almost constantly: developing outlines, bickering over unit objectives and enthusiastically spit balling more and more elaborate labs.

—

When it finally happens it is, of course, in the copy room. They’re both working late on a Friday night, making copies for next week’s labs, knowing that as two of the junior class’s advisors, prom preparation will hold their focus most of the following week. They’ve decided to make a night of it: Chinese ordered in and devoured while grading, music blasting in the supply room as they clean petri-dishes, beakers and test tubes and now tea as they collate, three hole punch and copy their way through prep.

They shift between the long counter in the middle of the room and the machines at the front, making neat little stacks of color-coded, paper clipped worksheets, falling between conversation and silence as easily as breathing. The tick of the clock and the whirring hum of the machines mingles with the Pandora station Fitz has played randomly, and it all falls to the background of their easing companionship.

Simmons is in the middle of her human biology lab test packets, chewing on her lip as she adds annotations to her master copy, when she feels eyes on her. Lower lip still caught between her left canines, a pen tucked behind her ear and curls falling haphazardly across her shoulders, she looks up.

Sure enough, just as she’d suspected, Fitz’s eyes are on her, brow furrowed, deep in thought. Her own brow quirks in question, nose scrunching as her concentration shifts to puzzlement. “What is it Leo?”

Her voices seems to startle him out of the trance he’s settled into: eyes fly up to connect back with hers and he gives a sheepish shrug, his smile more lopsided than usual for the expression. “I was just thinking,” he starts, eyes darting at the clock on the far wall.

“About?” She wheedles, a hint of a fond grin now decorating her features.

“About how it’s nearly eight o’clock on a Friday night, and here we are making copies.” There’s a quick gesture to their piles. “And for all that, I was thinking that I wouldn’t mind all that much if this was how I spent every Friday night,” he lets the weight of that settle in her smile and for a moment she just nods and leans down to add another annotation to her lab test.

Assuming the matter closed, Fitz turns back to his own work with a quiet sigh, shifting just slightly out of her zone of gravity, unconsciously pulling away at her lack of response. But the silence only lasts a moment before: “I wouldn’t mind that either.”

His answering grin is so wide it can’t be lopsided. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” And she turns back to finish her notes. But the moment she’s set the copies to run through, she turns back around and inserts herself into Leo’s personal space. She smiles up at him brightly, leaning up just slightly onto the balls of her feet to press a quick kiss to his mouth, pulling away as her last copy runs. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

—

The next Saturday, when they arrive to chaperone the prom together, Miss Simmons in a blue dress and Mr. Fitz with a matching tie, the whispers start immediately. When he pulls her close for the final slow dance of the night, forgoing his usual dislike for both gossip and dancing, the whispers are abandoned in favor of all out cheers from the entirely of the gathered junior class. (And perhaps even a few well-meaning catcalls from the other faculty, though they would certainly deny it if asked).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one was a blast to write, I may come back to it and write more snippets about teacher Fitzsimmons adventures. Wasn't 100% if I wanted to add the last scene so if anyone has thoughts, feel free to share.
> 
> I've got a Hogwarts AU in the works at the moment and a 'Family' themed story for little bit daft also littering my notebook. But who knows what new episodes will spur and derail. Sadly, I have a busy week so I'm not quite sure when I'll get to watch the new episode but hold fast Fitzsimmons fans: we can make it through!
> 
> Take care & thanks for reading!


End file.
